Daughter of the Umari

The daughter of the umari is a vegetal woman of the Tikuna origin cycle. When Yoi felled the immense world-tree, from its heart there sprang an umari tree (Poraqueiba sericea), and one of its fruits ripened into a young woman. The trickster Ipi lay with her and made her pregnant, and it is in connection with her that the great fishing takes place from which the Tikuna and the other peoples of the world are drawn out of the water. She personifies the passage from the vegetal abundance of the felled tree to the human generations, joining the imagery of forest fruit to the founding act of peopling the earth. Accounts vary as to whether the woman seduced by Ipi and this fruit-born woman are one and the same.

Domains

• fertility
• vegetation

Powers

• arises as a woman from the fruit of the umari tree

Relations

• lover: IpiIpi impregnated herPortal de lenguas y literaturas de Colombia (Instituto Caro y Cuervo), 'Mito de origen de los ticunas', lenguasyliteraturasnativas.caroycuervo.gov.co. (secondary)

Sources

• A young woman known as the daughter of the umari grew from the fruit of an umari tree sprung from the heart of the world-tree; impregnated by Ipi, she is bound to the fishing episode that originated the peoples.: Portal de lenguas y literaturas de Colombia (Instituto Caro y Cuervo), 'Mito de origen de los ticunas', lenguasyliteraturasnativas.caroycuervo.gov.co. (secondary); delamazonas.com, 'El principio del mundo: leyenda amazonica'. (secondary)